She shook her head. Annis could be stubborn, but she supposed it would take a strong tenacity to go on a quest to find the one person who could possibly help with the curse—the witch in the hills. She did not like the thought that Annis would take such a risk, but just as she had taken a risk to protect her sisters, Annis would do the same for her.
Bliss hoped in the end that whatever risk any of the three of them took proved worth it. That meant she had to get busy and see her risk prove successful.
She slipped her tunic over Rannick’s shirt to keep it clean since presently it was all she had to wear until she could get her shift repaired. It also provided more proper coverage for her legs, something she should not be showing, though Rannick was her husband and did have certain privileges, as did she. It made their situation easier for her, for if he was not her husband, she did not know how she would have been able to allow him to tend her as intimately as he had done.
“Set to your task, Bliss,” she ordered herself. If she allowed herself to get lost in endless thoughts, she would forever question and doubt her decisions. And now was not the time to let doubt in.
She had searched the crocks and sacks earlier, and knowing where things were, she grabbed a wood bowl and went and scooped ground barley out of one of the sacks and after placing the bowl on the table, she finished gathering what else she needed, then got busy making bread.
Rannick had two fish gutted and prepared to cook on his return to the cottage. He had lingered by the stream as long as he could, not fishing, until he could linger no longer. His mind had been in turmoil since he had glanced at Bliss earlier when in his arms and saw a genuine trust and gentleness in her eyes that had startled him.
The fear he had first seen there when they had first laid eyes on each other had vanished and allowed him to see her true nature. She was a caring woman, and though he had found not all healers caring, Bliss cared down to her soul. Never had he expected to find that depth of compassion in a woman. Many women he had met through the years cared and thought for nothing but themselves, and he could not blame some of them, their families interested only in the benefits a female could bring them. But Bliss was a peasant, she could benefit no one, and her lot could not be an easy one. How then did she hold on to such kindness, to such strength, to such trust?
The curse had robbed him of any decency, any humanity he had once possessed. It had robbed his friends as well. He had watched his friend Brogan suffer wound after wound that would have killed most men, but he did not die, the curse condemning him to a life of pain and suffering. The curse had turned Odran silent after he killed his brother on the battlefield, though few understood he had had no choice. He buried himself in silence and solitude after that. After endless attempts to try and break the curse, they had come to an agreement. The curse had to end and the only way to do that was for it to end with them, the last heirs to each of their clans. The three would die childless, leaving the curse with no one left to feed on, leaving it to finally die.
It had been a desperate decision and a necessary one and one that hurt more than any of them would admit. He was an only child and had hoped to have a large family. He had been happy, though worried, when his first wife, Cecilia, had announced she was with child. She had been a pleasant enough wife, undemanding and obedient, and they had gotten along well enough, but that could have been because they had spent little time together.
He tried to push the memory away, but it raged in him, and the blame grew each time he recalled the day he had lost Cecilia and their bairn in childbirth. He should have never wed, but his father had insisted, and he had surrendered to his command. Though, if he was truthful with himself, he had wanted to wed, had wanted a family, had wanted to believe the curse had no power over him.
How wrong he’d been.
Bliss is not your wife.
Would it matter? Would she fall to the power of the curse anyway?
She had survived her wound and the fever that had come with it. Didn’t that prove that the curse would not touch her? With no vows, no caring, no love between them, and only the winter months to keep each other warm and satisfied, could he at least know the compassionate touch of a woman for a few months? Did he dare take such a chance?